14th Reason Why
Helper T-Cells (White Mages) scan pathogens’ HP & Weaknesses so the B-Cells (Black Mages) know what antibody spell to cast against it
Individualistic reason to wear a mask:
Someone who becomes infected while wearing a mask is less likely to have a severe COVID19 infection than someone who becomes infected while not wearing a mask (Gandhi et al., 2020; Gandhi & Marr, 2021; Eugenia O’Kelly et al., 2021; Martin Krsak et al., 2021; Ashish Goyal et al., 2021; Win van Damme et al., 2021; Matthew Spinelli et al., 2021).
Example
If identical twins Pelody & Piper become infected after being exposed to the same viral dose, but Pelody was wearing a mask at the time, Pelody would have a less severe infection.
Table of Contents (click to Fast Travel)
💉· #14 Vaccines
🧬 ∘ Compared to Xy Men…
∘ Air Traffic Control: Helper T-Cells (or Teacher-Cells)
∘ The Bakers: B Lymphocytes
🎮 ∘ RPG Gamers
🏀· WNBA
∘ Gymnastics & Gender Roles
😺· Sidenotes
∘ Antigenic Response Due to Cumulative Low Exposure
∘ Interleukins
∘ Pro-Inflammatory Cytokines
∘ Defenses
∘ Reminders, Courtesy of GamerGirl
∘ Palestine & XX-Xy
∘ GamerGirl on Pfizer
· #15?: Emotional intelligence (EI)
∘ by Angela Phan (May 22, 2021)
∘ Widowhood Effect
∘ Kinkeeping (assume direct quotes)
∘ Kinkeeping Ranks (Laura Brown & Sara Derycke, 2010)
∘ The Utilitarianism of Maintaining Palled Interpersonal Bonds
· #16? Hot Guy Summer
∘ Umbrellas & Parasols vs. Heatstrokes
· XX-Xy in the Early Days of the Pandemic
∘ Survival Rate/ Case Fatality Rate (February, 2020)
🎗· The Recursive Loop
∘ (The Delta Variant Indicates He was Right)
#14 Vaccines
As of August 2nd, 60% of US women have received at least one dose
As of August 2nd, 60% of US women have received at least one dose
Compared to Xy Men…
- XX Women typically develop higher antibody responses following vaccination (Fischinger et al., 2019).
- XX — Xy chromosome differences influence immunologic differences in vaccine-induced immunity between the sexes due to the immunity-rich X-chromosome (Libert et al., 2010; Ruggieri et al., 2016).
- Mount stronger adaptive (acquired in response to an immune challenge) humoral & cellular immune responses (Markle & Fish, 2014).
3B → The adaptive/acquired immune system comprises 2 subdivisions: Humoral Immunity & Cell-Mediated Immunity. - Across the lifespan, females have more CD4+ helper-T cells than males (Abdullah et al., 2012; Lee et al., 1996; Lisse et al., 1997; Delmas et al., 1997; Mori et al., 2015; Ruel et al., 2011).
- Women’s T-cells have more robust cytotoxic activity than men’s (Bouman et al., 2005).
5B → Cytotoxicity is the degree to which your body’s cells are able to kill invaders. - Wound healing, is upregulated in women (Klein et al., 2014).
- Females have more B-cells & produce more immunoglobulin than males (Abdullah et al., 2012; Stoica et al., 1980).
Air Traffic Control: Helper T-Cells (or Teacher-Cells)
There are Helper T-Cells (CD4) & Killer T-Cells (CD8).
Helper T-Cells teach B-Cells what antibodies to bake in response to an invader.
Helper T-Cells also train Killer T-Cells to kill cells that have already been infected by an invader. In addition, T-cells use cytokines as messenger molecules to send chemical instructions to the rest of the immune system to ramp up its response.
CD4 T-cells are considered “helper” cells because they do not neutralize infections but rather trigger the body’s response to infections
The Bakers: B Lymphocytes
B-cells bake antibodies which are specific to each pathogen, are able to lock onto the surface of an invading cell, & mark it for destruction by other immune cells.
B-Cells = Antibody Mediated Immunity.
B Cells produce the long-lasting “memory antibody” function that is typical after recovering from an infection or after being immunized against a specific infectious invader.
T-Cells = Cell Mediated Immunity.
The cell-mediated response begins when a pathogen is engulfed by an antigen-presenting cell, in this case, a macrophage. T-Helper Cytokines activate the B-memory cells so they can bake antibodies.
RPG Gamers
🎮 Consider the scan ability most games have. T-Helper cells basically scan the enemy to reveal its weaknesses & HP, then the B-Cells create the correspondent antibodies.
Stated differently, T-Helper Cells are akin to the White Mage role & B-Cells are the Black Mage role: if the T-Helper Cell’s scan says the enemy is weak against fire, B-Cells cast that antibody spell.
Moreover, you remember an enemy’s weakness(es) after scanning them the first time, so you never have to scan the same enemy twice.
Similarly, B-Cells remember invaders so that they can be eliminated swiftly should they reappear.
Helper T-Cells scan pathogens’ HP & Weaknesses so that B-Cells (Black Mages) know what antibody spell to cast against it 🎮 👩🏻⚕️
For those who play Pokemon Go, this is just like appraising Pokemons’ IVs/Individual Values → T-Helper Cells are the Pathogen Raters 💁🏻♀️
Getting my annual flu shot sometime in the next month. Basically, the ice elemental that was weak against fire early in the game has mutated over the past year & so now CVS is going to teach my immune system Fira 💁🏻♀️
Even when neutralizing antibodies wane many months after your vaccination, B-Cells are capable of creating new antibodies should an infection occur. Of course, there’s a difference between having antibodies suited up & ready to go vs. having to train new ones.
Stated differently, receiving Pfizer/Moderna is like starting a boss fight with Protect/Shell automatically activated. Unfortunately, those defensive spells wear off after about 6 turns (or 6 months), but you still have your general defensive stats.
Of course, you could also have your summoner or white mage give you a third dose of Protect/Shell 🎮
SARS 2003 ➡️ In Hong Kong, the case fatality rate was 13.2 % for females & 21.9% for males (Karlberg et al., 2004)
MERS ➡️ A retrospective analysis of the Saudi Arabian Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2013–2014 showed a case fatality rate of 52% in men and 23 % in women (Alghamdi et al., 2014).
Xu et al. (2020)
Men shed COVID19 for 18 days whereas women shed the virus for 15.2 days.
WNBA
Gymnastics & Gender Roles
by Faith Karimi, CNN (7.31.2021)
The Sex of Scoring (Jason Woodnick, VP of the men’s program for USA Gymnastics)
— Women are awarded points for artistry, musicality and choreography. Because scoring is tied to choreography, women can get points deducted if they finish their routine before or after the music ends.
— Men are scored mostly on their acrobatic skills — giving them no incentive to add artistic elements to their routines.
Sidenotes
Antigenic Response Due to Cumulative Low Exposure
— Maria Laura De Angelis et al. (2021) discusses “the generation of protective immunity upon low antigenic stimulation may be represented by the repeated contacts of the immune system with the pathogen…”
— the idea that “that low doses of environmental SARS-CoV-2 may still be important in eliciting protective immunity against COVID-19, due to the recurrent and multiple nature of antigenic contacts.”
— In fact, Zhongang Wang et al (2021) found that ‘T memory immunity to SARS-CoV-2’ could develop “not only in COVID-19 patients, but also in some close contacts even in the absence of a successful infection.”
— Translation: pretty much everyone who has gone outside, to the grocery store, to a gym, worked on campus, etc may have some degree of T-Memory immunity at this point given that it’s been nearly 2 years.
— Disclaimer: This is a random thought on Medium & shouldn’t be taken to reflect medical advice. Continue to wear a mask. Get vaccinated. Socially distance. Don’t let Delta create a sequel to 2020 when we’re almost back.
Interleukins
Interleukins (particularly Interleukin-1B, Interleukins-2, & Interleukins-6) are cytokines that help boost the immune system’s response.
Pro-Inflammatory Cytokines
Pro-Inflammatory cytokines are immune activating agents, low levels of which has been associated with suppression of immune functioning.
Defenses
Coughing → cough, for example, is designed to expel foreign material from the respiratory tract.
Fever → your body’s attempt to make itself uninhabitable by any organism besides you (itself). Stated differently, a fever is your friend (so long as it’s not like a 120 fever… that’s a clingy friend).
Homeostasis (Canon, 1915) → Your body has a desired resting state that it will try & maintain. This is why a diet is a lifelong behavior change; not a temporary one. Each time someone who was on a diet ends it, their body gets better at gaining back the weight they lost. It gets better at returning to homeostasis.
A fever is your friend (but all friendships need boundaries)
8 Months after infection, robust immune memory was observed in most
Memory B cells against SARS-CoV-2 spike actually increased between 1 month and 8 months after infection. Memory CD8+ T cells and memory CD4+ T cells declined with an initial half-life of 3 to 5 months. This is the largest antigen-specific study to date of the four major types of immune memory for any viral infection.
The proportion of subjects positive for CD4+ T cells (92%) remained high at 6 to 8 months after infection. SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific memory CD4+ T cells with the specialized capacity to help B cells [T follicular helper (TFH) cells] were also maintained.
About 95% of subjects retained immune memory at ~6 months after infection. Circulating antibody titers were not predictive of T cell memory. Thus, simple serological tests for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies do not reflect the richness and durability of immune memory to SARS-CoV-2. This work expands our understanding of immune memory in humans. These results have implications for protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2 and recurrent COVID-19.”
“Immunological memory consists of antibodies, memory B cells, memory CD8+ T cells, and memory CD4+ T cells.
Antibodies, Memory B Cells, CD4+ T cells, and CD8+ T cells can all participate in protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2.
This study examined all of the types of virus-specific immune memory against SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 subjects.”
Jennifer Dan et al (2021)
Reminders, Courtesy of GamerGirl
I don’t know who needs to hear this right now… but the nose is the main target of SARSCoV2, & studies have reported a higher COVID-19 viral load in nasal swabs compared to throat swabs (Gallo et al., 20; Zou et al., 20). Wear a mask over your nose as that’s more consequential to infection — both infecting yourself & you infecting others — than the mouth (Booth et al., 2005; Farzal et al., 2019; Hou et al., 2020; Teunis et al., 2010).
Krishnan & Collop (2006): “The luteal phase is associated with more sleep disruption, such as longer initial sleep latency, lower sleep efficiency, and poorer subjective sleep quality, compared with the follicular phase (Mamber & Bootzin, 1997; Shaver, 2002).”
GamerGirl on Pfizer
Easter Head: why does #Pfizer work so well?
#GamerGirl: The #mRNA instructs the body’s own cells to produce a coronavirus protein called spike — a molecule that elicits powerful, infection-fighting antibody responses in people battling #COVID19.
Reduced sensitivity of SARS-CoV-2 variant Delta to antibody neutralization
(Delphine Planas et al., 2021)
Hot Guy Summer
Umbrellas & Parasols vs. Heatstrokes
Men are more likely to get a heatstroke than women (Faith Alele et al., 2020).
“In 2018, 100,000 people being taken to the hospital due to heatstroke. In 2019, Japan’s Environment Ministry tried to get men to try out using parasols for free at special events. Unfortunately the effort failed as men still saw parasols as something feminine” (Tom Vega, 2019).
Sunscreen vs. Masculinity
Dawn Holman et al., 2015 — Sunscreen
Women are significantly more likely than men to wear sunscreen
Skin Cancer (Alison Stallings, 2020)
Men are significantly more likely to develop skin cancer than women.
Women’s long hair may help protect them from developing some forms of skin cancers of the head and neck. Men develop many more precancerous lesions, such as actinic keratosis, on the scalp and ears, due to their thinning hair or bald heads.
Women think about their skin, a lot. This makes them more diligent about using sunscreen, wearing hats and sunglasses, and seeking shade because of the way the sun can cause their skin to age faster and make them look older. Approximately 90% of the skin changes that occur as a person ages, including wrinkles, sunspots and textural abnormalities, are attributable to UV exposure. In contrast, men usually don’t think much about their skin until there’s a problem.
Women go to the doctor more often than men.
Another result of patriarchal socialization is that men are less likely than women to:
- believe in the value of preventive health care
- have a regular physician
- to perform self-exams
- to be concerned about eating healthy
- visit the doctor as often
- search for health info online
Sunscreen & Skin Tone (Nicole Saunders, 2020)
“Dermatologists recommend a minimum of SPF 30 — as does the American Academy of Dermatology. You apply SPF 50 if you’re outside for more than an hour. You should also reapply that sunscreen every two hours — more frequently if you’re sweating or taking a dip in water because it rinses off and the efficacy breaks down.
The most SPF that skin itself can offer — regardless of skin tone — is about SPF 13, according to Michelle Henry, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in New York. Consumers can purchase clothing and hats with Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF). Non-UPF clothes offer no more than SPF 7 protection, and drops down to SPF 3 once you begin sweating, said Jeanine Downie, MD.”
XX-Xy in the Early Days of the Pandemic
Early evidence suggests that COVID‑19 does not affect men and women equally, with men generally at greater risk (Chen et al., February; Guan et al., April; Wenham et al., March). Fatality rates among men who contract the virus are 65% higher than for the female peers (WHO, 2020).
Survival Rate/ Case Fatality Rate (February, 2020)
Death Rate = (number of deaths / number of cases)
= probability of dying if infected by the virus (%).
To be clear → in humans, more men die than women at virtually all ages (Oksuzyan et al., 2008).
The Prophet James Hamblin’s Recursive Loop Revisited
The Recursive Loop
(The Delta Variant Indicates He was Right)
- “The coming year could be a story of two worlds undermining each other. Certain countries will approach herd immunity by vaccinating almost every citizen. Other countries could see mass casualties and catastrophic waves of reinfection — potentially with variants that evolved in response to the immunity conferred by the very vaccines to which these populations do not have access. In the process, these hot spots themselves will facilitate rapid evolution, giving rise to even more variants that could make the vaccinated populations susceptible to disease once again.
In a recursive loop, the virus could come back to haunt the vaccinated, leading to new surges and lockdowns in coming years. The countries that hoard the vaccine without a plan to help others do so at their own peril.” (James Hamblin, MD, The Atlantic)
As terrifying as that sounds, it’s highly unlikely as long as the countries who receive the initial vaccines aren’t highly individualistic.